The trouble with glyphosate ...

The trouble with glyphosate ...

Sir, – From time to time I have seen views expressed in The SF supporting the use of glyphosate as an essential herbicide for farmers in Scotland.

However, I would suggest anyone who wishes to embrace the use of glyphosate should read the book 'White wash – The story of a weed killer, cancer, and the corruption of science', by Carey Gillam.

This herbicide is now widely linked to non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL). Sadly for my family, we learnt of this link far too late to help prevent the death from NHL of my aunt 20 years ago.

Her exposure was due to extensive time on the local golf courses. Unfortunately, the golf courses of America have probably been sprayed more intensively with Roundup/glyphosate than any other part of the landscape there. And this has been going on for decades, the same span of time my aunt played so much golf.

NHL or for that matter any other forms of cancer are vanishingly rare in our family. That Mary Jane contracted this blood disease at all was a mystery to us all. But reading the book by Ms Gillam makes it all too clear how this came about.

Yes, we need to be able to grow crops effectively, but please do not buy the story put forth by Monsanto.

I have a photo taken in the early 1950s – which was one of several like this – showing the safety of the new wonder insecticide, DDT, wearing a swimsuit.

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